


The Day Doesn’t Set, The World Just Spins

by DxityDoo



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Has ADHD, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Crying, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Getting Together, Hurt No Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Quarantine, but he always does in my fics, it's not mentioned, lockdown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23752876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DxityDoo/pseuds/DxityDoo
Summary: “I want to see you,” Adrien said. He was sitting in his room with Marinette on FaceTime. Outside his windows, the sun was starting to set, painting the sky a deep orange. Normally, he’d be getting ready to go on patrol with Ladybug at this time. But, of course, this wasn’t normal.“Adrien…” Marinette sighed. They’d had this conversation before. He knew they weren’t supposed to go out. He knew he should probably stop suggesting it because it hurt every time she told him ‘no’. But he didn’t.Because he was lonely.Adrien isn't dealing with lockdown well. He hates feeling trapped and alone. Between constant calls with Marinette and relying on Plagg to pick him up when he falls down, Adrien is managing.He's fine. Absolutely, one hundred percent, completely fine.Until he's not.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Plagg, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Plagg/Tikki (Miraculous Ladybug)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 106





	The Day Doesn’t Set, The World Just Spins

**Author's Note:**

> This may be potentially triggering. 
> 
> There is nothing graphic featured in here but please take care of yourselves and don't read if you feel it may hurt you.

“I miss you,” Adrien said to the pixelated person on his phone screen. 

“I know,” came the reply. “I miss you too.” 

It was the third week of lockdown and Adrien was sick of it. His school had closed a little over four weeks ago now and the lockdown and all the rules—god he hated the  _ rules— _ had been in place for just under three. He missed his friends. 

He counted his days in phone calls with friends, instead of lessons at school. He barely knew what day it was anymore. They’d started all blurring together right around the time they’d stopped sending work home for the holidays. 

He didn’t know what to do with himself. 

Neither Ladybug nor Chat Noir had been out since the lockdown began and, even though he was glad Hawkmoth wasn’t using the mass panic to pick off easy targets, Adrien almost wished there would be an akuma so he could at least go outside  _ once. _

At least he hadn’t lost touch with Ladybug. 

Despite Ladybug’s immediate reluctance, Adrien had finally been able to convince her to reveal their secret identities so they could stay in touch during this… mess. 

He hadn’t been expecting Marinette Dupain-Cheng to be the one behind the mask. But, the more he thought about it, the more it made a startling amount of sense. Now, he wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to miss it. 

She’d been somewhat more shocked to discover it was  _ Adrien Agreste _ , the perfect, sunshine, golden boy who could do no wrong, that ran around the streets of Paris in a skintight leather outfit, telling god-awful puns and flirting shamelessly with her. 

It had been difficult trying to balance the easy-going friendship of Ladybug and Chat Noir, with the awkward politeness of Marinette and Adrien’s relationship at first but it wasn’t like they didn’t have all the time in the world to work out their feelings now. After a week of not talking in an attempt to process the fact that  _ somehow _ the two superheroes had been dancing around each for  _ five years _ , Marinette was the first to break. 

Adrien had picked up immediately. 

Not a day went past that they hadn’t called, or at least texted each other. Marinette had finally convinced Adrien to join her Minecraft world after days of constant pestering and “y’know, we could go mining together”. She insisted on playing on hard mode and, though he’d never admit it, it somewhat terrified him. Likewise, Adrien had convinced Marinette to visit his Animal Crossing island. She had then proceeded to shake all his money trees and dig up his flowers without even  _ filling them back in.  _ She hadn’t been invited back since. 

Sometimes, she asked after it and was met with a suspicious look and a “why do you want to know?” 

“Just wanted to know whether you needed any help with it,” she would say with a sly smile. Adrien would clutch a hand to his chest in mock-offense—dramatic, if you asked Marinette—and splutter indignantly until Marinette hung up on his theatrics. 

He’d call back a moment later, looking ruffled and they’d laugh until they couldn’t breathe and, for that moment, all was right again. 

But she had dinner much earlier than he did and the hours alone felt like eternities while he waited for her to come back and he could escape into that small normalcy once more. 

They grew closer and closer, until Adrien couldn’t imagine a world without her. Slowly, ever so slowly after five years of mutual pining, things began to click into place. 

They played games; they chatted; she worked, he read; a few times they even fell asleep together. He would pull her out of her frantic late-night designing spree and remind her to sleep. She would help him manage his own schedule to stay on top of everything, now he didn’t have school to do it for him. He was on the other end of a phone while she cried when the lockdown was first announced. She was there on FaceTime when he broke down after another full day without seeing his father. 

And, somehow, that had lead to Adrien lying awake one night, unable to sleep because all he could think about was Marinette’s smile, her laugh, the way her brow furrows when she’s working, the way her hands nimbly sewed two pieces of fabric together and somehow created a dress, the way she sometimes stuck her tongue out when she was stuck on a problem. 

He called her the next day, hesitant and unsure. She’d realised something was up immediately. 

“What’s up?” She’d asked. 

“I…” he bit his lip. He didn’t know how to say this. He knew what he wanted to say but he’d never done it before and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle the rejection. If she said no… he didn’t know what it would do to their relationship. “I think I like you.” He said. The words hung in the air like an accusation. “Do you wanna be my girlfriend?” 

Marinette said nothing at first and Adrien was worried he’d overstepped and he’d ruined everything and- 

“Yes,” she said, her voice so quiet Adrien almost missed it over the crackling FaceTime audio. 

That had been a week ago. 

“I want to see you,” Adrien said. He was sitting in his room with Marinette on FaceTime. Outside his windows, the sun was starting to set, painting the sky a deep orange. Normally, he’d be getting ready to go on patrol with Ladybug at this time. But, of course, this wasn’t normal. 

“Adrien…” Marinette sighed. They’d had this conversation before. He knew they weren’t supposed to go out. He knew he should probably stop suggesting it because it hurt every time she told him ‘no’. But he didn’t. 

Because he was lonely. 

It was bad enough that he never really saw his father normally but at least he was still allowed out then. Now, it felt like months between each conversation with his dad. And he felt truly alone. One week he’d only seen his dad twice. One week he’d only seen him once. 

Minecraft and FaceTime were great and he loved meeting up with all his friends and going exploring, but there was a small part of him that hated them. Because they were a reminder. That this wasn’t normal, that this was the only way he could interact with other people sometimes. It was a reminder of this whole situation and he hated it. 

Adrien thought he’d known evil. As Chat Noir, he fought Hawkmoth almost weekly. He saved Paris more times than he could count and rescued civilians from Hawkmoth’s evil clutches time and time again. And yet, this whole  _ thing  _ was more evil than all of that combined. 

There was no one to blame, no person he could  _ cataclysm  _ to make this all go away. He just had to wait. He hated waiting. 

“No! Hear me out! If we’re up on the roof, we’re not spreading anything, even if we had it, right? And both of us have been at home for two weeks now so we probably don’t have it and your parents haven’t been out and I haven’t even really seen my dad this week-“ Marinette winced, “so they’re probably good too. So it’s not putting anyone at risk! A- and they’re  _ superheroes.  _ It’s not like the police are just gonna tell  _ Ladybug and Chat Noir _ to-“ 

“Adrien!” Adrien stopped talking immediately and looked over to his screen. “We can’t. Maybe they wouldn’t stop us but that still doesn’t mean we  _ should.  _ We need to lead by example.” 

“But-“ 

“No.” There it was. That word. That stupid fucking word. He was so sick of it. 

“Fine,” he said. He understood her reasoning. It made sense and he  _ understood  _ that. He knew it was a stupid plan. He knew she wouldn’t say yes. He understood all of that. But he didn’t understand the tight band around his chest. 

He felt like he was choking. He couldn’t quite take in a full breath. His room was so much bigger than it needed to be and yet it felt way too small. It wasn’t a terrible prison, he knew. He had food and space to move and a thousand more luxuries than half the people in Paris but it was a prison nonetheless. 

Normally, he would call for Plagg and he’d jump through his window and run off into the night until he could breathe normally again. When he’d return to his room later that night, it didn’t feel quite so suffocating. 

But he couldn’t do that. Because he’d promised Ladybug—he’d promised Marinette—that he wouldn’t go out. Because Paris looked up to them. So they lead by example. They didn’t leave their homes. They didn’t patrol the streets. They didn’t see each other. 

“I need to go practice my piano,” Adrien said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them. “I’ll talk to you later.” 

“Adrien, wait-“ he hung up. Flinging his phone across the bed as it pinged with a new text message—probably from Marinette—he curled into a ball with his head in his hands. A sob tore it’s way out of him before he could stop it. 

He knew it had been a stupid idea. He knew she would never have gone for it. He  _ knew  _ that. He’d known it before he’d said it. He’d known it as he’d spoken the words. He knew it all the more now. 

But for one moment, he’d hoped that maybe it wasn’t as crazy as he knew it was. That maybe she’d understand, in the same way he did, that the gaming and the video calls were just as painful as they were soothing. 

That maybe she’d been hoping he’d suggest it too. 

“Kid…” Adrien barely registered the tiny paw that gently pressed against his shoulder. Plagg  _ understood.  _ In a way that perhaps Marinette did not. Tikki was just as invisible to him as he was to her. Adrien had his lady. Plagg could not even see his through video calls. 

And Plagg was  _ there.  _ He saw how Adrien was struggling. He knew Adrien’s fear of being trapped. He could see Adrien struggle every morning. He could see Adrien shut down every time the near-constant-blaring news announced they were extending the lockdown. He saw how he shrank into himself every time someone mentioned it on the group Minecraft server; every time another app added a banner or a pop-up with advice on how to  _ combat _ it, like it was a fucking  _ battle _ . 

Adrien avoided the news. He muted the chat when his friends started talking about it. He learned to avert his eyes when the banners popped up across the screen. 

Adrien was absolutely  _ peachy,  _ thank you very much. 

“I’m fine, Plagg,” He said, though the tears on his cheeks said otherwise. Plagg said nothing. He flew into the gap between Adrien’s arms and his legs and perched gently on the back of his hand, curling up into a small ball and wishing he could do more. 

He stayed there while the sun set and the night dragged itself across the sky. He stayed there while the moon rose in the sky and the stars glittered to life. He stayed there until Adrien had long-since run out of tears and finally fell into a fitful sleep. 

He was still there when the sun began to peak above the horizon, the light catching on Adrien’s still-damp cheeks, his swollen eyes. 

It was only when Adrien began to stir, bringing one hand up to rub at his eyes sleepily, that Plagg moved. He flew over to the window, hitting the button to draw the shutters and block out the approaching day for just a few hours more. Adrien settled down again, looking much more at ease than he had last night. 

Plagg looked out through the thin slits between the shutters at the slowly awakening world. Gods, he really hated this lockdown. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song "Is Everybody Going Crazy?" by Nothing But Thieves because it feels quite appropriate atm.
> 
> Fun fact: the working title of this piece is "me projecting my feelings about covid-19 onto mlb characters to make myself feel better"
> 
> Before anyone asks, I AM okay. I was okay while writing this piece too. But I have been feeling like this a couple of times these past few weeks and I needed to get that down without putting myself back in that mindset again. Cue me making my favourite characters suffer because apparently that's a surefire way to feel better lol.
> 
> I hope everyone is doing okay. I know things are scary and stressful and upsetting rn. I know there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been overused by a hundred different government broadcasts or self-care posts but sometimes just knowing you're not the only one feeling that way can help?
> 
> Anyways, I'm going to stop talking now.
> 
> For anyone following ATWH, I'm hoping to finish chapter 10 this week so chapter 9 will (hopefully. I make no promises) be out sometime in the next few days. 
> 
> That is all.
> 
> Goodbye!


End file.
